Marion Blumenthal Lazan

February 9

The Principal Financial Group Center for Global Citizenship at Drake University events are all free and open to the public.

Sponsors: Hillel, Jewish Federation, and The Principal Financial Group Center for Global Citizenship

Marion Blumenthal Lazan provides a moving firsthand account of the Blumenthal family’s life in Germany from the events preceding Kristallnacht to imprisonment in concentration camps, including Bergen-Belsen, to liberation in April 1945. She was eleven years old when the family finally gained its freedom. She is the coauthor of Four Perfect Pebbles: A Holocaust Story and subject of the PBS documentary Marion's Triumph. Her story is a life-affirming, inspirational narrative of survival, reconciliation and the limits of endurance, and renews one’s faith in humanity.

Wayne Ford, a pioneering Iowa elected official and nonprofit leader who has dedicated his life to improving the lives of Iowa’s diverse population, will donate his historical papers and materials to Drake University.